Vacation Bible Schools are not far off, and soon the directors will be scouting for people to help. For as many directors searching, there will be 5 people hiding from said directors. I spent over 5 years as VBS director, and learned quite a bit, not the least being that I am not cut out to be a VBS director. However, there may be some poor soul that is a director and finds this page. Before you run screaming for the hills, I can offer some tips. A few will be forthright, but others will be tongue in cheek.<\/p>\n

The first step often given is the best one. Pray. This must be done. Without prayer, you’ll be in for a rough ride. However, don’t start with, “Why me? Why did I have to walk by the pastor’s office at the same time he was looking for a director?” I know the feeling, but that attitude won’t help.<\/p>\n

The first person you need to recruit is a cajoler, unless you are one. You need someone on your team that can convince people that they would fit in a particular position. Every church has workers that would be good, they just have to be convinced to step up. I failed this step. I am not good at cajoling, and didn’t get help from anyone who is.<\/p>\n

With the designated cajoler ready, they need a list. Many churches take a spiritual gifts assessment, or people take one on their own. These are a great resource. Teachers and kitchen workers are going to be found in the teaching and hospitality gifts. However, not everyone can teach any age. Be careful about someone who has studied the Bible at the scholar level trying to teach 5 year olds, that combination doesn’t work often.<\/p>\n

My main advice on teachers is never give in to the “warm body” phenomenon. This is where you have a spot to fill and find somebody who will show up and can read the lesson. I say this from experience, DO NOT DO THIS. Not all of your teachers have to be the most awesome teachers in the world, but don’t put someone who has no business teaching in a room with kids. Unless you are looking for a way to run that person or the kids off.<\/p>\n

The best part of VBS comes next, snacks. Find one of those people who likes entertaining guests and get them in the kitchen. Give them a budget if that is how your church does things, give them the theme information, schedule, and how many to expect, then stay out of the way. These people enjoy feeding others, and don’t need you telling them how to do it. Offer to find additional help if they need it, but do not be a micro-manager. Some might say people with the hospitality gift live for doing things like this.<\/p>\n

There are other sections in VBS, music, recreation, crafts, some churches do missions. The thing to remember is recruit people that fit here. The guy that can’t carry a tune with shovel (me) probably needs to be doing something besides teaching the songs. Crafts seem easy, but the leaders need to be patient. Don’t panic, unless you’re reading this the week before VBS starts and you don’t have all the spots filled. You can panic then. In fact, email me and I will panic with you.<\/p>\n

As VBS director, you are kind of a general contractor. You share the end goal, and help the others, but you don’t do every single job by yourself. Trust the workers, that’s why prayer is done first, and then you find people you can trust.<\/p>\n

Once everything is over, ask for comments and suggestions. The workers will be better situated to see things that could be done better. Then, make any reports you need to, and find out when they will be voting on the director next year so that you can hide.<\/p>\n

Vacation Bible School serves as a great opportunity to reach kids and families with the gospel. But, it can be a disaster if you think that you can get away with no preparation. It is like any other ministry; if you don’t let God direct, you’re working for yourself.<\/p>\n

Obviously, I am not a master of VBS; I just have a few opinions on what not to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vacation Bible Schools are not far off, and soon the directors will be scouting for people to help. For as many directors searching, there will be 5 people hiding from said directors. I spent over 5 years as VBS director, and learned quite a bit, not the least being that I am not cut out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1391,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions\/1391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}